


Earn Your Wings

by Banach_Tarski



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Angst, Fake AH Crew, Magic, Magic Realism, Wingfic, Wings, and that's a plot point, ryan is a dramatic bitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 19:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14171544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Banach_Tarski/pseuds/Banach_Tarski
Summary: There’s a small chance that people can spontaneously grow wings if they perform an act that’ll lead them to their destiny. You’ll see pairs on the painters down by the park, on the construction worker checking plans, on the kid who just bought his first skateboard. You’d expect people like the Police Chief and the High Judge to have them, and for the most part you’ll be right. If you looked closer, there’ll be pairs under the jackets of corrupt politicians, on conmen and criminals alike.Ryan’s seen most of the flying spectrum that Los Santos has to offer. After all, he used to be part of it.(With 16 accompanying art pieces!)





	Earn Your Wings

**Author's Note:**

> A heads up that some of the art pieces contain blood, injuries, and one shirtless Ryan. If you are on mobile and the images are too large, switch to desktop settings.
> 
> Inspired by the musings of DmitriMolotov.

Los Santos had a population of around five million, which meant there were roughly forty thousand fliers in the city. This evened out to be eight in every thousand people, almost exactly the global average. Around the world there is an estimated fifty eight million fliers, which means you’re just over twice as likely to meet one as you would an Australian if everyone was evenly distributed across all countries.

Ryan knew this because he’d spent a large portion of his childhood looking up the numbers to figure out exactly what his chances were to become one of them. Except earning your wings wasn’t up to chance, really. There were specific sets of circumstances that led to the event. Even scientists today didn’t know exactly what it was, but millions of firsthand accounts led to the same conclusion- if you found that one special thing that you knew you were born to do, that made your life worth living, they’d unfurl from your back and show you the way to achieve it. Often that was an overly romantic simplification, but most people agreed it was a sound guideline.

Fewer people would agree if they knew Genghis Khan earned his after he started his first war in China.

They came in all shapes and sizes, natural bird colours and technicolour, even a couple of rare accounts of complete transparency. Most importantly, anyone who earned their wings had the gift of flight. Even if the smaller wings didn’t allow for longer flights or vertical take-offs, they could still be used for gliding.

Ryan didn’t care what colours his wings would be, or their shape and size. He just knew he wanted them, like almost every other kid on the face of the earth.

 

*******

 

Eventually he grew up and the dream faded a little, became a background to more pressing needs such as paying rent and not beating the ever-loving shit out of an annoying co-worker. He stumbled into a life of crime one afternoon, a mugging gone wrong (for the mugger) and found it paid the bills better than a job as an IT consultant. Found he had a bit of a knack for it. Gave the whole affair a bit of theatre and added a skull mask to his ensemble.

The first time he killed someone that bit of dramatic flair worked to his advantage. The man he was hired to kill was some sort of insurance broker who’d cheated on his wife one too many times, and the whole get-up had terrified the man long enough for Ryan to disembowel him. As he’d died bleeding out on his office floor he’d cursed Ryan, spat on the floor and called him a vagabond, and Ryan had liked the sound of that.

Vagabond.

Now that had a nice ring to it. Loyal to none, a wandering villain that struck fear into the hearts of those who would dare act against him. Free to do and go wherever he wanted and that would make him unpredictable and terrifying. Ryan would like to be known as a vagabond.

But he could do more than that. He didn’t want to be _a_ vagabond; he wanted to be _the_ Vagabond. He knew then, instantly and abruptly, that if he devoted himself to the role he could be known as the most dangerous man in Los Santos.

Maybe he was a bit dramatic and romantic in his own interpretation of the idea, of the persona the Vagabond could be, but why did that have to be a bad thing? He _liked_ being dramatic.

Just like that, a pair of wings unfolded from his back and gently settled to rest half unfurled at his sides, quiet as a whisper and cold as night.

Ryan Haywood had walked into that office building and left as the Vagabond.

 

*******

 

It was well known that human muscles in avian wings weren’t strong enough to support the weight of a full grown human. Despite this, people who had earned their wings continued to fly. The answer was simple- the muscles needed were more powerful than those a regular human could develop, and it allowed for flight without the need for ridiculously large wings. The average pair spanned fifteen feet and could be folded up and hidden beneath a long coat.

Ryan’s were eighteen feet, as best as he could measure, and when folded they barely avoided dragging on the ground. There was no way they would fit under a coat and so he’d resorted to a special feather-safe spray-paint to hide his identity whenever he went out as the Vagabond.

Ryan’s wings were similar to an eagle owl’s, broad and wide with serrated edges to reduce noise, mottled with dirty greys and a hint of brown like dried blood. They were not beautiful wings, but they were efficient at silently soaring around the city. Los Santos supported plenty of flight paths but absolutely nothing stopped anyone from weaving in and out between the buildings, ducking under overpasses or taking breaks on helicopter pads at the utmost peaks of skyscrapers. There were even a few cafes scattered across a select few rooftops, accessible only to those with feathers.

Ryan found them a bit pretentious.

The Vagabond’s wings were a gunmetal grey with the inner feathers, the marginal and secondary coverts, the colour of fresh blood. The spray-paint was mostly only known and available to the modelling community, so crimes among those who’ve earned their wings were either rare or well-hidden due to how easily the criminal could be identified. Ryan thought the latter though, because skyscrapers disturbed the line of sight so frequently, making it a breeze to flee a crime scene, and there was no database to confirm who was or wasn’t a flier.

Besides, Ryan had killed his fair share of fliers, most of them criminals and murders like himself. A slightly unhealthy obsession with them as a child left him with a list of weaknesses and bad flying habits he could exploit, and it made tracking fliers as easy in the sky as it was on foot. It was almost too easy sometimes, the number of times he’d been able to lure his targets into tighter and tighter alleyways until they couldn’t fully extend their wings and had to drop. They hadn’t spent hours diving in and out of ravines and under bridges and weaving around the legs of the jetty on the beach, honing their skills with the water close by to stop them falling to their deaths.

Why wouldn’t he, when his pair of wings were everything he’d wanted and more? If he had the choice, he’d never touch down on solid ground again.

Sometimes they were fast, far faster than him and better suited to the city streets. Wings based on seabirds like frigatebirds had manoeuvrability Ryan could only dream of, and some ducks and geese could beat him in a dead sprint. There was a famous police patrol that ran the length of the shipyard and the airport with three albatrosses who could fly the whole day without needing to land.

At least, they did until the Vagabond took two of them down at once with a feat of aerobatics that the city had talked about for days afterwards. Most people found it extremely difficult to fly and shoot at the same time, but Ryan had perfected the technique of flying high and falling towards his target, rifle pointed down. When you’re already higher than the tallest skyscraper you don’t expect to be attacked from above.

So far no-one has managed to outfly a bullet. After only a few months of taking up the mask and all that went with it, the Vagabond had become a notorious figure in the city.

******* 

 

Occasionally he’d work with a crew for a week or two, if the pay was good and he didn’t think they’d try to stab him in the back. There were plenty of crews dotting the island and all of them were squabbling over territory or weapons or whatever, and Ryan was happy to add to the chaos. Once he’d worked for a crew for a week and the next one he’d worked with their direct enemy against them. There were very few survivors left to spread that story around.

The Vagabond followed the money, the power, the notoriety. Nothing and no one else.

 

*******

 

Until the Wednesday afternoon he was contracted to kill one Geoff Ramsey, leader of the Fake AH Crew.

The pay was exorbitant and Ryan wanted some upgrades for his supercar. The Vagabond cornered Ramsey in one of his old warehouses, away from the rest of his crew and far from police’s reach. The Vagabond stalked him through the shelves of abandoned boxes, too tight to spread their wings and escape, too old and dusty to climb without giving away their locations.

“It’s just a matter of time, Ramsey,” The Vagabond taunted, tossing a knife in the air. “How about ending this before I have to burn the whole building down?”

“You could be doing more than this.” Ramsey replied from somewhere to his right. The Vagabond swivelled around but saw no movement.

“I’m doing enough. I’m ending your miserable life tonight, aren’t I? That’s going to be a big life event.”

“Big for me? Yes. But for you? Just a typical Wednesday. You’re stagnating.”

The Vagabond cocked his head.

“How do you know this isn’t exactly what I’m meant to be doing?”

“Because I’ve seen people whose destiny has been to sow chaos and destruction.” Ramsey said, this time from his left. “They rise hard and fast and fall in half the time. You’ve been doing the same sort of dirty work for almost a year now.”

“Again, that could be my”-

-“But it’s not. I’ve seen your work, Vagabond. You’re creative, you’re driven, you have big aspirations. But you can only do so much on your own.”

The Vagabond’s wings twitched.

“What are you suggesting?”

“What if I said you weren’t the only one destined to do big things in this city?”

The Vagabond saw a swirl of dust in the air a few shelves down. He crouched, and stalked towards it.

“Do you mean yourself?” The Vagabond asked.

“No. But it’s my job to help those who _do_ have destinies like that. You know the things my crew have done.”

Everyone in Los Santos has heard of the terrible and awesome feats and heists the Fakes have pulled off. Ryan had always assumed they were grossly exaggerated.

“I know the stories you like to spread about them.” The Vagabond answered.

“They’re all true, every single one of them. And if you give me a minute, I can prove it to you.”

Ryan hated to admit it, but he _was_ curious. Ramsey was trapped, defenceless, and alone. It was a pretty obvious stalling tactic, but Ryan was happy to give him the slightest bit of hope that he might be able to talk his way out of this. That would make it all the sweeter to rip away from him.

“… You have one minute.” The Vagabond said.

The Vagabond was close enough to see the grin on Ramsey’s face.

“Great. I was hoping you’d say that.”

The lights flared on and the Vagabond was blinded. He stumbled backwards into some boxes, blinking, and slashed in front of him to ward off the inevitable attack.

Except no attack came. The Vagabond rubbed his eyes to force the afterimages away and spied Ramsey staring smugly at him, rocking on his heels a bit and wings flaring in and out in amusement. There was movement above him, and the Vagabond saw Ramsey’s right hand man, Jack Pattillo, and two more crewmembers sitting in the rafters. Two more sat on boxes by the back entrance, one with a sniper rifle and one with a shock of orange and purple hair. He must have walked right under them and hadn’t noticed.

Shit. He was woefully underprepared to fight off Ramsey’s entire crew. There was a rifle strapped to his back but he didn’t think he could get it before one of the six shot him.

And he was definitely a sitting duck right now. Why hadn’t they killed him yet?

Ramsey heaved a sigh of relief.

“Christ, that could have gone a lot worse. You are a hard man to get a hold of, Vagabond. That’s why I had Jack set this whole thing up.”

“Guilty as charged,” The other man said, wings flapping gently for balance on the rafter.

Ryan recognised the voice as the guy who had put out the hit. People didn’t ask Ryan to work for them- Ryan found jobs he liked and contacted the issuer for details and payment. He’d thought a jealous crewmember wanted Ramsey taken out, fed him the information about Ramsey’s movements and the old warehouse, but that clearly hadn’t been the case.

What sort of boss lets his crew take out hits on him?

“We just want to talk.” Ramsey continued. “If you hear me out and decide to leave, we won’t stop you. But please wait until I’ve said my part.”

Ryan gave a pointed look at the sniper sitting by the door. Ramsey followed his gaze and waved a hand at the sniper, and he slung the weapon over his back.

“Sorry, they can come off as a _little_ aggressive. But you have my word they won’t stop you from leaving.”

“… Fine.” The Vagabond said. “I’m listening.”

 

 *******

 

Ramsey convinced him to join them on one job to try it out. True to his word, after the meeting had ended Ryan was allowed to walk out and he did so with his head held high despite the heavily armed men above him. Two days later he joined the Fakes on a whirlwind heist through Downtown Los Santos that involved two firetrucks, a flamethrower, and twenty sticks of dynamite, and Ryan couldn’t remember the last time his face had hurt from smiling like that. It was an easy decision to go on another one, just as crazy and exciting as the first, and the third and fourth were the same.

He started joining them on all their heists, walked with Geoff (not Ramsey) to weapon pick-ups, burned down cruise ships with Michael and Gavin, sat with Ray on stakeouts and got into bar fights with Jeremy. The next thing he knew eight months had passed and he moved a couple of suitcases into Geoff’s shared apartment. The Vagabond hadn’t taken jobs from any other crew in about the same length of time. What was the point when he had everything he needed with Geoff’s crew?

And everything Geoff had said that one Wednesday in the warehouse had turned out to be true. Ryan was doing bigger, better things than ever before, and sure there were plenty of smaller jobs to fill the time in between heists, but they were always for something grander. Ryan’s mask was plastered across all the news networks and on social media and people grimaced when his name was mentioned.

It was exactly what he wanted.

It was exactly what he _thought_ he wanted.

But he’d come to enjoy taking off the mask when he came home and let the Vagabond slip away and he could be Ryan again with the crew- his crew now, there was no denying it. Strained silences gave way to awkward conversation to jokes and laughter and shared stories under the cover of night, the city lighting them from below like a campfire. Ryan started to talk about himself and the crew responded in kind.

Jack had earned his wings before Geoff had even formed the crew formally. After working with Geoff for years and finally earning enough to buy a jet, Jack flew over Geoff’s empire- a small thing for sure at the time, but every inch of it Jack had fought for, and he knew he’d do it again in an instant if Geoff asked him to. Being Geoff’s confidante, his right hand man, taking everything Geoff could give and giving it back ten times better, yep, that was something Jack was happy to die doing. And he’d earned his wings several hundred feet above the ground and almost crashed the jet trying to land it with the cockpit full of feathers.

Jack’s wings were a dusty orange faded to white at the tips, run through with brown. Shorter and thicker than the average, Jack couldn’t stay in the air long under his own power but that never bothered him. He liked the cockpits of aircraft better anyway; it was flying without the effort.

Geoff shared his story as soon as he heard Jack tell his. Geoff earned his after Michael and Gavin had joined the crew, but before Ray and Jeremy. He’d been _sure_ his wings would be related to running a crew somehow, it was what he did best and occasionally he’d wake up with silver feathers in his bed after a deal had gone successfully or they’d made a lot of money, but no wings would appear. It was after Michael and Gavin had come home from a bar one time and Michael had walked in sporting a fresh pair of wings himself did he realise what he was meant to do. The next day when he bought Michael the newest model of light-weight minigun and gave it to him, silver wings, long and thin like a seagull’s and with the faintest sheen of blue when the light hit them right, appeared and unfurled. Geoff knew how to bring out the best (and worst) in people. He said that was the moment the crew went from nothing to a name recognised across Los Santos.

Whenever he needed downtime Geoff would head to the rocks east of the shipyard. The wind was too strong for most other fliers but Geoff was an expert at handling the unpredictable currents, his wings long and strong enough to glide over the worst of them. When he was showing off, he’d lightly skip over the exposed rocks just as a wave came in, and take off before he could get covered in spray.

Gavin earned his wings when he was twelve, the second he figured out just how good he was at making mayhem. Causing a scene, breaking through limits, flirting with the law, Gavin could do it all and not break a sweat. Claimed he couldn’t remember life without them, but Ryan didn’t believe him because he walked and tripped over them like he still wasn’t used to them. Somehow he was as acrobatic as they came in the air, pulling dizzying flips and twists that Ryan couldn’t hope to match and pulling up just as his wingtips scraped the ground. Once he’d managed to take the mask right off Ryan’s head and Ryan was too impressed to be mad.

Gavin’s wings were a bright tan and beige, rounded and wide, and dipped in gold. Most impressively, when the sun’s light shone through them they looked like they glowed. When Geoff and Gavin had both shown him their wings properly, after telling their stories a few weeks into their friendship,  Ryan had asked where they’d gotten the gold and silver spray-paint and they’d looked at each other and laughed. Ryan was allowed to run his fingers over their silken feathers and see his hand come away bare of dust.

Michael was the only other crewmember who had earned his wings. They were broad, brown, and pointed like a bird of prey’s, like Ryan’s. The outer feathers were a mottled mix of umbers and bronze, and the inner tertiaries faded to tan the closer to his back you looked. Michael earned his protecting Gavin from a particularly pushy asshole at a bar who wouldn’t take his grubby hands off Gavin’s feathers. That man had not returned home with said grubby fingers, and Michael knew he would do whatever it took to keep those he cared about safe. The wings had flowed out of him halfway through a sentence as he realised, and Gavin had helped him fly home.

Not happy to be left out, Jeremy showed Ryan his coveted feather- one he claimed appeared as soon as he dyed his hair orange and purple. It was a light brown, so light it may have been white, and vaguely transparent towards the tips. Not being a primary flight feather, Jeremy said he didn’t know what sort of bird his wings would be based on and Ryan couldn’t find an answer for him.

Ryan asked him why he was so excited about earning his wings one day when he was so afraid of heights, and reminded him of the time during a heist Ryan had to carry him and he’d screamed the whole way down. Jeremy had wiggled his eyebrows and said it was more about the principle of the thing. And besides, wouldn’t the wings help him face his fear?

Ray, when asked for his opinion, had shrugged and said it was easier to snipe on the ground anyway. Still, Ryan had caught him giving wistful looks at Gavin and Michael’s wings as much as he tried to deny he wanted a pair of his own.

So many fliers together in one group was not something Ryan had seen before. But then again, drawing wings out of people seemed to be Geoff’s forte. He’d whispered his ideas about Ray and Jeremy a couple of times, usually late at night and softened with alcohol and exhaustion. Ryan and Jack would gently remove the glass from his hand and lead him to his bed, someone would always leave a bottle of water on his bedside table, and in the morning Geoff would grumble and complain but he’d also make them breakfast.

Every time he went out as the Vagabond that cold and sterile professionalism slipped further and further away from comfortable. The Vagabond was still his most useful tool though, and it got him here and earned him his wings, but he found himself… hesitant, to put on the persona. Time spent as the Vagabond was time he couldn’t spend joking and laughing with his crew.

Ryan found it hard to believe he didn’t float away lighter than air each evening when he took the mask off.

 

 *******

 

Then another crew came for him and burned that reality to the ground.

 

 *******

 

Maybe Ryan had grown complacent with six crewmembers watching his back, he’d forgotten to be more cautious by himself. Maybe he was just unlucky and in the wrong place at the wrong time. He didn’t remember much about the day beforehand, or what happened after.

He got jumped about a year and a half after meeting Geoff in a warehouse, and it was in another that it all would end.

It was a new crew, one that had migrated from other crews across the mainland and collected together like scum at the bottom of a drain. All of them trying to throw their weight around, prove they were tough enough to take a slice of Los Santos, fucked up enough to keep it. Just a couple of random people, really, but they hit him hard enough to see stars and kicked his legs out from under him and threw him in the boot of a car.

Ryan came to when someone dropped him onto a cold tabletop in a building in the middle of nowhere and held his arms down. They argued, tossing up ideas about what to do with him, egging on their crewmates to take his mask off, and then his leather jacket, careful to lift the slits in the material away from his wings without jostling them too much. He flapped his wings, hard, to try and get them off him but they laughed and someone backhanded him, a ring carving a jagged crevice across his cheek.

Someone grabbed one of his wings then and held it outstretched. They admired the length of it for a moment before one of them made the dreaded suggestion. Half of them ran around the warehouse looking for the right tools while the other half fought to keep him on the table as his struggles increased tenfold.

Eventually one of them found a sawblade and Ryan started to beg.

 

 *******

 

His crew found him soon after, but there was not much left of him to find. The mask had been put back on him, a mockery of the powerful villain he’d once been, and when they took it off glassy eyes stared back at them. They thought he was dead for a moment, but Jack found a shallow pulse and kept him alive long enough to transfer him to a hospital they trusted.

The glassy look stayed in his eyes until he left the hospital two weeks later, walking on feet he hated and gazing up at a sky he could never be part of again.

Wings didn’t age like regular bones, feathers, and muscles. They didn’t get illnesses, their feathers grew back quickly, and once you had them they’d never fade away.

But they never grew back.

 

 *******

 

It took a further three months for Ryan to decide he’d regained all the mobility he was going to get. His back muscles were wrecked, but intense physical therapy had brought back most of his flexibility. There was nothing to be done about the long, angry scars that ran down his back top to bottom, pink and rough where the rest of his back was more tanned. He wasn’t sure exactly how they were healing. He didn’t look at his back much and he wouldn’t let anyone else do so either.

*******

 

The Vagabond’s power and influence were gone. His face had been plastered across all the media networks, the newspapers, everywhere, thanks to pictures taken by that crew. Of course the Fakes had burned them and everything they ever touched to the ground, there was no trace of them left on this planet, there was no sign of what they had done except on Ryan’s back.

The wings they took had also made an appearance. Images of crewmembers posing with the wings behind them went viral in all the worst circles, until a livestream was posted where they were coated in gasoline and set alight.

The night that followed was probably the roughest of his life. He wasn’t sure what would have happened if his crew hadn’t been around to force him into a movie marathon, watching him like a hawk until exhaustion took him and he passed out on the couch.

The next morning Gavin found their hideout and that was that.

Ryan had been meticulous in keeping his feathers in order, and ones that had fallen out or were damaged had been either destroyed or donated to the modelling community to make costumes. Not like Gavin’s whose could be found under almost every couch the apartment, or Jack’s who kept his in a bag in his wardrobe. There were no mementos to remember his by.

He could feel them sometimes, little phantom pains that popped up whenever Jeremy told a joke or Gavin threw something at him and his wings should flare up, they should fan out in surprise or enjoyment and they should catch the sun as easily as they catch the wind and Michael should help him preen the difficult feathers near his spine that were hard to reach.

Instead, he gave his bottles of spray-paint to Gavin and Geoff and told them to do what they want with them.

He still joined them on jobs, on heists just as fun and dangerous and absolutely not worth the level of planning that went into them, but there was no denying the emptiness that hung over him like a storm cloud, casting a shadow behind him that still fanned feathers out although they had no source.

He dreamed often of flying. He dreamed of his crewmates flying high above him, even Jeremy and Ray, but he couldn’t find the right wind beneath him, his body felt far too heavy, and when he fell he did so with such force it was hard to believe he was ever up there to begin with.

*******

 

Eventually the mask came back, and when it did it didn’t come off again. Ryan wore it constantly, desperately trying to bring back the magic of the Vagabond. He went out on jobs alone, against the wishes of the crew, and committed awful, heinous acts. Crimes that would make the other crews fear him again. Slowly the Vagabond rose in infamy again, but it was a darker and crueller man that took the mantle.

That was his destiny. Be the Vagabond, be the silent, lonely villain and all your dreams would come true again.

But they would never grow back.

Every evening the Vagabond would return to the apartment, and the Vagabond would clean himself up, and the Vagabond would cook a small meal as dinner, and the Vagabond would sleep and dream and wake up and leave the apartment in the morning.

 

 *******

 

One Wednesday afternoon, eight months after Ryan landed and never took off again, Ray gathered them into the main room and told them he was leaving.

As soon as the words left his mouth, great long wings sprouted from his back and curled around him.

There was not much to argue after that.

A week later Ray pulled his meagre belongings into a duffel bag and gave his farewells on the roof. His wings caught the afternoon light, a deep brown colouring that grew lighter closer to his spine. The light made the fragile wingtips glow pink. He gave a final salute and dove off the roof, a sea breeze easily keeping his slight form aloft and he peeled away to the west.

The Vagabond had not taken his mask off to say goodbye. He watched the spot that was Ray disappear behind a building and turned around and walked back inside the apartment.

Later that night someone knocked on his door for fifteen minutes before letting him be.

The next night they knocked for two hours.

On the third night they kicked the door in but the Vagabond had disappeared.

 

 *******

 

It took them two weeks to find him.

“We’re falling apart,” Ramsey said, “please, we need you to come back.”

“That would be a mistake.” The Vagabond replied. He threw a mug out of the little fliers café, a hair’s-breathe away from Ramsey’s head, and it began a long descent. It takes effort. Each day gravity feels stronger. “Leave, or I will make you leave.”

“Ryan, please”- Ramsey pleaded.

The Vagabond picked up his assault rifle and Ramsey flinched, wings curling around him.

“Not my name. Time to leave.”

“Yes it is!” Ramsey shouted. “You have to stop this. You are _Ryan Haywood_ , and that’s someone I care about a hell of a lot more than the Vagabond. Please. Join the crew again.”

The Vagabond shook his head. “The Vagabond doesn’t work with crews anymore.”

Ramsey pointed to the view behind him. “Do you see that? This is the tallest building in Los Santos. If you carry on this path, this is as high as you’ll ever go. There is nothing else for you here. Do you understand?”

“If this is as high as I go,” The Vagabond aimed at Ramsey down the sights, “then it’s all downhill from here, Ramsey. Be a shame if someone got _hurt_ on the way.”

Ramsey held his ground. “You’re not going to shoot me you dramatic bitch. Why can’t you be happy as Ryan Haywood? We _like_ _you_ as you are, wings or not.”

“Ryan Haywood isn’t who I’m meant to be.” The Vagabond spat. “He got too soft and look what happened. But the _Vagabond_. This is how I _earned_ ”-

-“If you’re so sure you’re meant to be the goddamn Vagabond, then why are you sitting up here being so fucking miserable? Do you honestly think doing this will bring them back?”

The Vagabond hurled the rifle at Ramsey and he ducked to avoid it, but the sharp metal caught on his silvery feathers and ripped some of them out. Ramsey spiralled around and all but fell off the roof to fly away.

The Vagabond kicked the broken, blood speckled feathers off the edge after him and tried to ignore how brilliantly blue the sunlight made them shine.

*******

 

Another week passed. The Vagabond stared out a window of a shitty apartment. Ryan Haywood met his eyes through the glass. His head felt too heavy all of a sudden and it dropped to his chest.

 

 *******

 

A week after that, word reached him that the Fakes lost half their territory in a huge takeover. A crew well on their way up that the Vagabond had worked for once, one with a lot of momentum and big plans, was moseying in on their slice of Los Santos. The Vagabond shut the door on the (winged) messenger and locked it.

 

 *******

 

The next day Ryan Haywood couldn’t muster the strength to get out of bed, the pull of gravity below him like a black hole.

 

 *******

 

The flow of jobs as the Vagabond slowed. Nobody wanted to hire a man too dangerous and unpredictable to be trusted.

He sold most of his possessions to keep the apartment. He kept a couple of guns, a knife, a few of his favourite books, and precious little else.

 

 *******

 

A month later he mugged a man outside a familiar office building. It was getting late and the Vagabond knew there wasn’t enough in this wallet to make rent this week.

All he had to his name were a couple of weapons, fifty three dollars, and a black skull mask.

He leaned against a tree and watched the scarce inhabitants go about their late-night work. The building was the insurance company where he’d made his first kill. Where Ryan had made his first kill.

It was dumb, wasn’t it? That he felt he needed to make that distinction.

Geoff was right.

“This is ridiculous.” Ryan muttered to himself. “I’m being ridiculous. I _am_ ridiculous.”

He took the Vagabond’s mask off and let it dangle loosely from his fingertips. He lightly tossed it away from him, but dropping it was like dropping anvil, and a cloud of dust evacuated the crater it left. He looked down at the mask and smiled.

And he curled in on himself because suddenly he was laughing harder than he had in ten months, and the wings that haunted his shadow drifted away in a light wind, one feather at a time until they were no more.

 

 *******

 

Three days passed and Michael kicked Ryan’s apartment door down.

“Please Ryan, or Vagabond, or whatever the fuck you want to be called,” Michael said breathlessly, “that new crew caught us off guard at the pier and Jeremy couldn’t fly out the trap and they _have him_ and”-

-“I know.” Ryan said, putting the finishing touches on his face paint. “I called them. That door was unlocked too, by the way.”

“You _what!?_ ”

“You’re right, I should really keep it locked in a neighbourhood like this.”

“ _Not the door, idiot!”_

“You can bitch me out on the fly over,” Ryan said sharply, “That’s why you’re here, right? Because I know who you’re up against?”

“I’m here because it’s _Jeremy,_ Ryan, and we can’t take the crew out without him.”

“Without me either, it seems. Really, Michael? Half your territory?”

“You can snark all you want on the way. But you need to come and fix this problem you apparently caused, okay?”

 

 *******

 

What would have been a fifteen minute drive turned into a two minute flight, thanks to Michael’s powerful wings. They jumped off Ryan’s apartment building’s roof and coasted along warm air currents to Del Perro Pier, where the Ferris Wheel spun infinitely and spread its usual glow on the choppy waters below. Storm clouds hung overhead, cutting out light, and they were accompanied by a strong wind which further churned the waters.

Flying again was… painful. Not as bad as Ryan thought it would be, but it was like comparing a knife in the heart to a missile in the same spot. It still _hurt_.

Michael dropped him off behind a pair of dumpsters next to the building on the very end.

“Christ, Ryan, I ain’t carrying you back.” Michael wheezed.

Gunfire struck the dumpster next to them and they ducked.

“Oh look,” a cold voice from above shouted, “Ramsey’s flier is back and he brought a friend!”

“A very dangerous friend!” Ryan hollered back.

“Ryan?” Geoff said from out of sight.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Ryan replied. “Sorry about all this.”

“Is that the Vagabond?” the cold voice called out again. “Word’s out that you lost the plot after a bunch of randoms cut your wings off.”

“Rumours of my madness have been greatly exaggerated,” Ryan shouted at him, “but trust me, Tennyson, I don’t need a pair of wings to kill you and finish off your crew. Or a fancy skull mask.”

“I don’t see how you’re going to manage that,” Tennyson drawled, “because I have your crewmate, and everyone knows how much Ramsey loves his crew. None of you are fucking walking away from here.”

“Oh absolutely not,” Ryan said and stood up. “But you aren’t either.”

Ryan pressed a button on a handheld detonator.

The pier behind him exploded with twin bursts of fire and smoke and Ryan stumbled forwards from the shockwave. Bits of pier and dirt shrapnel pelted the building and a few of Tennyson’s men cried out in alarm.

A wave of dust and ash spread over the building, and Ryan took his chance to get inside undetected, Michael hot on his heels.

“Jesus fuck, Ryan,” Michael coughed, “are you trying to kill all of us?!”

“Just the only way off this pier. No one in Tennyson’s crew has earned their wings. Now we have the chance to wipe them out before they take the second half of Geoff’s territory.”

“Or they could wipe us out!”

Ryan winked. “Everyone who wants to be here is here. I would love to see them try.”

“Except Jeremy.”

“Except for Jeremy, yeah. It’s a good thing we’re here then, isn’t it.”

Geoff and Jack appeared from out of the gloom.

“Ryan!” Jack said, and Ryan handed him a couple of extra magazines. “Thanks. Are you done being an idiot?”

“Never. But I’m ready to help out again. I figured some stuff out.”

Geoff stared at Ryan. “What the _hell_ are you wearing?”

Ryan glanced down at himself. “It’s a leather jacket, Geoff. And I’ve worn face paint before.”

“And the chest hair?”

“Professionally done, glad you like it.”

Ryan shot two shapes making their way through the murk. “Where’s Jeremy?”

“Top floor,” Jack explained, “Tennyson’s up there with him.”

“He’s alone, right? All of his men are sneaking about down here?”

“As far as we can tell. But if we go up to rescue Jeremy,” Geoff said, “Tennyson will kill him.”

“No he won’t. Jeremy’s too good of a bargaining chip to waste like that. We should wipe out the rest of Tennyson’s men before we go up though. Where’s Gavin?”

“Circling around above and stopping anyone from going round the side and flanking us. He’s the only one apart from Jack now with any bullets. Am I understanding right that you’re the one who caused all this?”

“Kinda. Duck!”

Geoff dropped and Ryan shot right where his head had been. A thug hit the floor with a wet slap. Ryan mimed blowing smoke away from the muzzle.

“Do you have a knife at least?”

“Of course.”

Michael nodded as well.

“This is a choke point.” Ryan explained. “Jack and I can scare Tennyson’s men through here and you two can finish them off.”

“Good plan.” Geoff said. “Once they’re dead we’ll deal with Tennyson together.”

There were about a dozen men inside the building with them and they were easy work. As the pier burned, red light flicked in and out through the building. It was a distracting sight, but Ryan and Jack were very, very well versed in dealing with distractions while in the field.

They returned to Geoff and Michael, stepping over their fresh kills just in time for another explosion to rock the building.

“Was that you?!” Michael shouted.

“Not this time!” Ryan replied. “I think one of Tennyson’s cars exploded! The fire’s spreading faster than I thought it would.”

“Fire? Spreading? Who would have thought.”

The pier rumbled.

“Uh oh.” Geoff said.

“Out of the building,” Jack said, “come on, before the whole thing comes down.”

They stumbled out of the building and into a bright red haze of smoke and fire. There was another gaping hole in the pier now, this one car-sized. Burning fuel had set new parts of the pier alight.

Ryan gazed up at the building and spotted Tennyson and Jeremy standing on the roof.

“There they are,” Ryan pointed, and at the same time Tennyson pointed a gun towards them and fired-

-hitting another of Tennyson’s vehicles and it exploded, sending a shockwave racing through the building and it crumbled. The foundations bent and fell through the pier, taking it down and they fell with it while debris rained down over their heads.

Ryan caught sight of a black shadow engulf Jeremy and Tennyson before the water rushed up to meet him.

Gavin caught him before he hit the water and they glided down to land on the wreckage. The others were able to slow their fall and landed mostly unharmed in the water, treading sand and burned wood from the explosions. The water wasn’t that deep here, but the ocean’s waves pounded the remains of the pier and soaked them to the bone.

“Fuck, fuck!” Michael said, flapping his waterlogged wings, “we have to find Jeremy”-

-“I saw Tennyson,” Ryan said, “he’d earned his wings.”

“What?” Gavin said. He sat perched on a pillar, the wind pulling at his feathers. “Tennyson can fly now?”

“I saw his wings,” Ryan said quickly. “Big and black, like a crows. He could easily fly Jeremy somewhere, especially in this wind, and I know exactly where he’d take him.”

“Where?” Geoff asked.

“Tennyson has a boat hidden up the coast, not too far from here. I’ve flown there before.”

“We have to go after him.” Gavin said. “If he gets Jeremy on that boat and leaves, we’ll never be able to find him. But I can’t carry you Ryan, neither can Jack, and Michael’s wings are soaked.”

“Geoff,” Ryan turned to him, “you’re a seabird, and you’re used to these conditions. Take me to Tennyson’s boat and help me get him back. I got him into this mess, I need to get him out.”

Geoff nodded. “I can carry you. Gavin, make sure Michael and Jack can get back to dry land before the storm hits. We’ll come back with Jeremy soon.” He flapped his wings and the water spun off his feathers.

“Good luck,” Jack said.

Gavin fluttered off his perch to help pull Michael out of the water. “You’d better get him back, after all the bull you’ve put us through the last couple of months. It’s good to see you, by the way.”

“I promise.” Ryan said. “And it’s good to see you too.”

 

*******

 

The wind was strong, but not strong enough to affect Geoff’s flight. Ryan’s weight acted as a sort of rudder, helping stabilise Geoff’s long wings against sudden changes in wind direction. They climbed a couple of hundred yards and levelled out just below the cloud line.

Ryan saw a dark shape ahead of them.

“Shit, they’re directly ahead of us!” He shouted to Geoff. It was difficult to hear above the wind and Geoff’s hard breathing. “Take us above them!”

Geoff nodded and laboriously pulled them about fifty feet higher, until dark clouds obscured their targets into a dark smear. Geoff beat his wings faster and flew them over Jeremy and Tennyson.

The clouds cleared for a moment and Ryan was able to make out Jeremy’s shock of orange and purple hair.

He had an epiphany.

“What are we doing, Ryan?” Geoff asked directly into his ear. “I think I can beat them to the boat”-

“Give me your knife.” Ryan instructed. Geoff passed it to him.

“I don’t think you can make that throw,” Geoff said, “You might hit Jeremy, Ryan- Ryan!”

Ryan wormed out of Geoff’s grip and plunged towards the frothing ocean.

The fall took only a little over two seconds, but that was plenty of time for Ryan to spread his arms out and direct his descent towards Jeremy and Tennyson.

It was also enough time to finally understand what he’d figured out at that office building, both the first and second times.

Earning your wings is supposed to lead you to your destiny. Ryan had always assumed it was his role as the Vagabond that was his destiny, but he was at his happiest when he was with his crew, as himself. Geoff had been right from the very beginning. Huge, dramatic displays of wiles and firepower and teamwork gave him the wind beneath his wings, often literally.

And he liked the theatrics, the ripples they sent through the city, and he liked who he did them with, couldn’t do them without. The Fake AH Crew was worth every bruise and scrape and gunshot wound, every argument and fight and ridiculous hypothetical, and every exploded pier and deadly freefall.

Even every pair of broken, burned, and mutilated wings that Ryan had waited his entire life to earn.

That’s the thing, Ryan realised. You don’t really earn your wings when they appear on your back. They’re gifts. Earning your wings is what you do in all your years afterwards.

This crew- this is what Ryan was made for. The Vagabond was a means to an end, and one-fifth of that end had ridiculously dyed orange and purple hair. Ryan was not going to let him down.

When you’re higher than the tallest skyscraper you don’t expect to be attacked from above.

Ryan slammed into Tennyson with the force of a small car and plunged Geoff’s knife into the closest part of him he could reach, his shoulder. Tennyson cried out and dropped Jeremy, but Ryan caught him before he could fall even a foot.

A warmth had unfurled from his back the moment he plunged the knife into Tennyson. Wings as grand and spanning as the night sky itself, coloured the same dark blue with bands of grey, spread and beat with smooth and practiced motions. Jeremy held on to him tightly and gazed at them in wonder.

“Ryan?” He said. “How-“

“Ryan!” Geoff shouted, hovering next to them.

“Geoff,” Ryan said calmly, “take Jeremy back to land, okay? I’ll join you on the mainland soon.”

“…Alright. We’ll be at the pier.”

They flew off as Tennyson recovered. He pulled the knife from his shoulder and let it fall toward the ocean.

A poor decision. Now he would bleed out faster.

“Well, Haywood,” Tennyson sneered, “I thought you said you wouldn’t need wings to take me down.”

“I don’t,” Ryan replied, “but they’re not going to hurt.”

Thunder rolled across the sky, and the first few raindrops fell. The storm on the horizon had come. Tennyson and Ryan hung in the air about a dozen yards apart, watching each other. Tennyson’s crow wings beat at the air greedily while Ryan’s owl wings maintained a measured pace.

Crows and owls. Natural enemies.

Ryan was going to tear Tennyson to shreds.

“Do you want to know how I earned my wings, Haywood?” Tennyson said.

“I don’t care.”

“Fair enough.” And Tennyson pulled his gun and fired.

Ryan expected this, and had begun to drop as Tennyson finished speaking. He spiralled away and circled under him, staying close to make it more difficult for Tennyson to aim. Shooting was already almost impossible in the air and Tennyson’s injury made that worse, but Ryan wasn’t going to make it any easier.

Crows were faster than owls but Ryan had more experience flying, and ten months without it had not dulled his instincts. Tennyson twisted a certain way and Ryan knew he could dart to the side to avoid getting shot. Bullets flew wide and Tennyson struggled to stay aloft and manoeuvre at the same time.

Ryan caught a warm updraft and ascended into the cloud layer. Clouds are damp and, combined with the light rain, make it difficult to fly, but Ryan wagered Tennyson would have more trouble with his smaller wings. Rather than give Ryan an advantage, he stayed beneath the cloud layer and fired up into the gloom.

“What are you planning, Haywood!” Tennyson bellowed. “You’re not going to surprise me again!”

Ryan couldn’t see Tennyson below him, but he could see the muzzle flashes of his pistol. Ryan dropped his gun when the pier collapsed and Geoff’s knife was lost in the ocean. He didn’t have any weapons left to surprise Tennyson with.

But he did have something else.

A black shape hurtled past Tennyson’s head and he pirouetted and blasted the shape with his pistol. That was the moment Ryan fell out of the cloud layer once more, down one boot, but the other hit one of Tennyson’s feathered joints with an audible _crack_.

Tennyson screamed and screamed again when Ryan grabbed the dislocated joint and cracked bone and _wrenched_ half the wing in the wrong direction, breaking it beyond repair.

Spinning towards the ocean in a death spiral, Tennyson dropped the gun and grasped at Ryan, trying to slow his descent. Ryan let go of the injured wing and grabbed the other one, kicking Tennyson’s hands away as he did. He palmed a fistful of primary feathers and ripped them out in a smooth motion, and let the wind take them. He did it two, three more times until the wing could only flap uselessly and only then did Ryan let Tennyson finish his plummet alone.

He hit the water with enough force to shatter bone and lacerate organs, and it only took a few seconds for his body to disappear under the waves. Ryan hovered a few feet above the water, his descent far more controlled, and watched the body sink.

A long black flight feather, longer than his arm, hit the water next to him. Ryan fished it out of the water and took it with him back to the pier.

 

*******

 

When he touched down on the burnt pier, the Fakes could only watch his wings settle gently at his side in awe.

“How on _earth_ did you manage to do that?” Jack asked.

Ryan shrugged. “I had a sneaking suspicion. I’ll explain everything once we get back to the penthouse, because the police can’t be far away. That is, if you don’t mind-“

-“Of course not, idiot.” Geoff said. “Welcome back. But you’ve got a _lot_ of fucking explaining to do.”

“Naturally. Just let me grab some things from home and I’ll join you there.”

Ryan flew to his apartment for the first and last time, savouring the short flight, and almost collapsed on the carpet after he shut the door behind him. Legs shaking, from shock or exhaustion or excitement, he wasn’t sure, and he stumbled over to his dresser.

His mask, still sporting dirt from its fall in front of the office building, sat on the dresser. He reached inside and retrieved a single midnight-blue feather from the interior, and tucked it into a pocket. He left the mask where it sat.

He jumped off the building’s roof and flew to his penthouse, light as a feather and free as a bird.

 

 *******

 

Two months later, Gavin and Jeremy returned to the penthouse from a shopping trip.

Gavin frowned and shook his head as he came in, wings fluttering sadly at his sides, and he dropped some bags on the couch next to Ryan.

“Why do you look so disappointed, Gavin?” Ryan asked.

“It’s Jeremy!” Gavin pouted, “He had the run of the shop and he picked the absolute _worst_ outfit. I couldn’t believe my eyes.”

“Even though he dyes his hair orange and purple?”

“Those are the colours he picked! And a _cowboy hat_!”

Geoff, Jack, and Michael came into the living room.

“Come on then,” Michael said, “show us!”

“In a second!” Jeremy called out from around the corner. “I just need… a minute. Oh.”

Jeremy started to laugh.

“Jeremy?” Ryan said.

Jeremy swanned into the room, put on a pair of sunglasses, and shouted:

“I’m Rimmy Tim, motherfuckers!”

To everyone’s surprise but Jeremy’s, great light wings sprouted from his back and Jeremy spread them wide, until they almost scraped against the ceiling. The inner coverts were a dark drown, and the primaries and secondaries were an almost-white brown that faded to translucent at the tips.

“No, really?” Geoff said. “ _Really?_ You earned your wings because you came up with a shitty alter-ego?”

“That’s how Ryan did it!”

“No,” Gavin said, “he earned his by being a dramatic theatre bitch.”

“A _dangerous_ dramatic theatre bitch,” Ryan corrected. “and that shitty alter-ego helped me find you guys.”

“And now we can all be dramatic together in the sky.” Jeremy finished. “All I have to do is make sure Rimmy Tim doesn’t take over and I can avoid about ninety percent of Ryan’s problems.”

“Fuck you.”

“You wish. But, um, do you still have any of that feather spray paint around? I’ve had an idea…”

Geoff shook his head. “Don’t you dare. I forbid it.”

“Excuse me, Geoff? I _earned_ this.”

Ryan stood up. “I don’t have any in the colours you’re looking for, but we can fly and pick some up.”

“Right now?”

“Yeah. Why not?”

“We’ll all go.” Jack said. “Give you some support, Lil’ J.”

“I’d like that. I just thought, you know, might be a good idea to learn how to fly first.”

Ryan clapped him on the back. “We’ll push you off the roof and I’m sure you’ll figure it out on the way down.”

“Ha ha, very funny. Wait. Let go of my wrist, please. Ryan! Guys? Ryan, please!”

 

 *******

 

Ryan would always be the Vagabond, even if he didn’t wear the mask anymore. But he was Ryan Haywood first and the Vagabond second. And Ryan Haywood wanted nothing more than to show off with his crew exactly what he could do, and earn his wings all over again.


End file.
